Local Voices

One of the Scribbler’s collateral ancestors, Daniel Gibbons, published “God in Us,’’ a brief book about “Quakerism,’’ in 1928. Gibbons worked as a journalist in New York and Philadelphia. In his youth, he attended Lampeter Quaker Meeting in Bird-in-Hand.

Since taking office a little over a month ago, President Donald Trump and his appointees have been unusually active. So unprecedented are their actions, both in scale and scope, that it has been bewildering even for those of us whose job it is to make sense of it all.

My experience as an undocumented immigrant who came to the United States was nothing like people may have thought about or heard about in the news.

Local journalism is more than headlines; it’s the heartbeat of a community. It’s not just crime statistics and reports of fires and vehicle crashes; it’s local election results and complex debates about land preservation and affordable housing and school taxes. It’s about a trailblazing stud…

In his Feb. 16 column (“Fiscal reform starts now: Rep. Smucker makes the case for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency”), Republican U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker tried to defend the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a part of the federal government.

Imagine the moment of reuniting with loved ones you haven’t seen in years being taken away from you. Your brother, your elderly parent or even your child. A day you dreamed of for countless nights being ripped away by a scrawled signature.

This column was edited at 5:10 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, to correct information about Safe2Say Something call center staff.

As a member of the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a nonprofit working to increase understanding of why investments in development and diplomacy help to keep America safe, I believe the U.S. Agency for International Development must be restored immediately.

Immigration is a topic that evokes very strong emotions in many people. I write not as an expert on immigration, or from a political perspective, but rather as a fellow citizen and the shepherd of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, which is comprised of 15 counties here in central Pen…

In the 1930s, when Joanna (Jan) Raub Ripple was growing up in Raub households in Quarryville and then New Providence, she was attracted to her family’s medical books, particularly those containing illustrations of medicinal plants.

Black art is more than creativity — it is a declaration of existence, a reflection of lived experiences, and a force that has shaped culture and social movements for generations.

On the last day of January, the day before Black History Month was set to begin, newly confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that “Identity Months (are) Dead” at the Department of Defense, the U.S. government’s largest agency.